call Praying and Discoursing about good things and such like matters He whose Religion only alters the Countenance and busies himself in composing the Face and ordering the Postures of the Head shall sooner be believed though he pour out an hundred Lies than that well-designing Person who studies to bridle his tongue to speak nothing but the Truth and to order his Life according to the Will of God These shall all be disparaged and vilified by an empty and talkative Devotion which shall be preferred much before them You may think this to be scarce credible but when you consider the Ignorance of some the Weakness of other mens Natural Parts the naughty Affections that most are possessed withal and bring along with them to the reading of Books even of the Holy Scriptures and how Truth it self was rejected when it came in Person into the World and the sacred Volumns have been so wrested that the absurdest Fictions have been made out of them you will not wonder that a Pious Discourse meets with this Bad Entertainment Either men consider not that some Truths lie deep and must be drawn up with a great deal of labour or they have not indifferent Minds but suffer their Desires and Wishes to form their Opinions for them They run over a Book in post-hast and only spend a few slight thoughts upon it or they want that Honesty and Integrity of heart which is necessary to a right Vnderstanding They are fiercely bent to maintain their own conceits they are blinded by the Love of this World or by Anger and Hatred of others or by a proud and vain Opinion of themselves which rise up to contradict the plainest Truth that strikes at them And of all the rest nothing more indisposes the Soul and prejudices it against the Truth than that laest thing now named a vain Conceit of themselves which makes men bold and confident apt to censure rather than to learn to be angry at all Reproofs and to conclude that is false which they do not instantly understand St. Austin e L. 3. Conf. chap. 5. Turgidus fâ—stu mihi gâ—randis videbar confesses that this would not let him understand the Holy Scriptures which contain things that are of this Property to grow up with a little one but I disdained saith he to be a little one and being swoln with Pride and conceit seemed some great Person in my own eyes To this there often joyns it self an Envious Humour which loves to detract from others that men may seem better themselves than indeed they are Or rather as Dr. Sibs hath observed f Sermons upon 4. 5. and 6. of â— Canticles p. 285. This is a thing which springs from the poisonous Pride of mens Hearts that when they cannot raise themselves by their own worth they will endeavour to do it by the ruin of anothers Credit through Lying and Slanders The Devil was such a Lyar and Slanderer then a Murtherer He cannot Murther without he Slander first This disposes them to believe any thing of others though never so false and then moves them to fling it abroad by Word and Writing thinking it enough to salve their own Credit should they be caught in a Falshood and convicted of notorious Lies to thrust in these old Words they say it is reported g Aiunt feâ—tur and such like wherewith all the Tales and Legends that are have been ushered into the World In this manner Apion calumniated the Jews and thus the Primitive Christians were abominably abused And all this with Security enough the Folly and Ill Nature of the Multitude being so great that they dote upon these Forgeries and Detractions and suffer themselves as Josephus hath observed h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. l. 2 contra Apion sooner to be won by them than by that which is writ with more care and consideration they rejoyce in Reproaches and are ill at ease and vexed when they hear mens just Commendations Some are credulous and others are negligent a Lie steals upon some and it pleases others Those do not avoid it and these have an appetite to it i Sen. l. ult nat Qu. c. 16. But I need not go to those antient times to seek instances of this hard Vsage there being one so fresh and pregnant nearer at hand of all that hath been said There came forth a little Book not long ago whose Design as God knows and all Sober men might easily discern was not to make men less but more Religious not to abate the Force and Power of true Godliness but to direct unto it encourage and advance it that its Name might be venerable among men For which end the Author earnestly desired that men would not deceive themselves and others with mere Words and Phrases that the Scriptures of God might be carefully studied rightly explained and wisely applied that the People might be taught the wholesome Words of the Lord Jesus and not fed with vain and empty Fancies that the Holy Faith of Christ might be made more effectual for its end Goâ— might be worshipt with greater Reverence Charity and Vnity among Brethren preserved and restored all those notorious Sins which stare meâ— in the Face though they wear the Mask of Religion might be repented of and that they might not make those things the mark of Religion which do not distinguish Bad men from Good in short that they might talk less and do more not rest themselves in the Means nor quarrel about them but seriously mind that Religion which is the End of all Sermons Prayers Holy Conference and of Faith it self and may certainly be promoted and attained by such means as the Laws of this Christian Kingdom allows Against this innocent and harmless Book a malecontented Person hath opposed himself with that unbridled and unruly Heat which without Reason and Knowledg was noted of old k Greg. Naz. orat 26. p. 446. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be one great cause of all the Disturbances and Divisions that have been in the Church of Christ Religion he would have you think is not only assaulted in its Out-works but the whole Fabrick of it undermined For which purpose he hath contrived a great many Stratagems and Maximes out of his own Imagination but as he would have it believed out of that Debate wherewith he tells the World he sees me going on destroying and to destroy Piety and introduce Ungodliness and laying an exact Method and Platform to compass and effect the Extirpation of all practical Holiness even from Dan to Beersheba l Pres to the Sober Answer p. 12.15 This is the Sum of his Charge against me and in his own words For which there is no Cause at all but that I set not the same Esteem that he doth upon their keeping of Daies talking about Religion and such like things which are at most but Means of Piety when lawfully used but in which he places it should seem the
of your own party to the very skie to magnifie their gifts their zeal their sincerity their self-denial their tenderness of Conscience their pains taking together with their sufferings though never so small And on the other side to disparage ours or at the best to speak very coldly of them though never so pious and learned nay to shake your heads sometimes and lament their Ignorance in the mystery of Christ the meanness of their spiritual gifts the formality of their pravers their unedifying preaching and as it is to be feared their straining Conscience to comply with the times N. C. Pray let 's have no more of this C. Why may I not tell you a few other Devices that have been in use to win and keep your Proselytes As to brag of your numbers to spread stories and lyes by your Agents and correspondents from one end of the land to the other to fill every Country with the very same tales to possess the people against the writings of those of our way to give glorious titles to your own Books to cry up your sufferings as if they were for the cause of Christ to call all things you do not like I dolatry Antichristianisme Popery and such like odions and frightful names nay such hath been the tenderness of some of your hearts as to threaten your poor neighbours they shall have no work at least to deny to imploy them unless they will come to your meetings N. C. Now you calumniate to purpose C. It was a thing notorious in the late times as Mr. Edwards assures us and I have cause to think this evil humour is not spent but rather encreased But be that as it will you have a number of far more efficacious Arts then this As to vaunt of the power of your preaching of the glorious appearance of God among you and of the multitude of Converts to you to bespatter all that oppose you to perswade the people it was good livings that made so many turn Conformists and that they have lost their gifts and are much decreased in their graces at least you have thought good to terrifie them and bid them take heed for they have lost the prayers of thousands But if any adventure to write against you wo be to them Whatsoever they were before immediately they become the enemies of God and all goodness The people are told that they strike at the power of godliness through your sides and that they reproach Religion when they reprove your Superstition Every reprehension is called railing and hatred to the people of God and whatsoever fault they find it is done on purpose you say to bring all godliness into contempt In short to suppress you is to suppress the Spirit and but to speak against your affected language is to be desperately profane for who ever saw the beauty of Sion and the glory of the Lord filling the Tabernacle but in your Congregations Let any man go about to contradict this it is but pouring out half a dozen Scriptures against him nothing to the purpose and he is confuted nay one word will do the work and he shall be thought to write rarely and to come off like an Angel who can but say The Lord rebuke thee N. C. You had as good hold your peace for I beleive nothing that you say C. I can prove in every particular by true and faithful histories that this hath been the humour of your Sect. N. C. Save your self the labour I have no time nor list to hear you C. Nor to read good Books but only to babble as your Answerer doth out of your own head Did you never see a little Book called A wise and moderate Discourse concerning Church Affairs N. C. No. C. It was Printed in the beginning of our Warrs 1641. And I find it since put among my Lord Bacons Works there you may find several of these things noted First saith he * Speaking of the Oppugaers of the present Ecclesiastical Government they have appropriated to themselves the name of zealous and sincere and reformers as if all others were cold minglers of holy things profane men and friends to abuses Nay if a man be indued with great vertues and fruitful in good works yet if he coneurre not fully with them he is called in derogation a civil and moral man and compared to Socrates or some Heathen Philosopher Just contrary to St. John who would have called such a man Religious and told such as many of them that hâ— vainly boasts of loving God whom he hath not seen who loves not his neighbour whom he hath seen St. James also saith that this is true Religion to visit the Father less and the Widdow So as that which is but Philosophical and moral with them is in the phrase of the Apostle true Religion and Christianity And as in affections they challenge the said virtue of zeal and the rest so in knowledge they attribute 〈◊〉 themselves light and perfection The Church of England in King Edwards daies waâ— but in the swadling cloaths or in the Cradle in Queen Elizabeths time but in it infancy and childhood The Bishops hâ— somewhat of the Day break but the Mâ—turity and fulness of light is reserved foâ— themselves And as they consure virtuâ—â— men by the names of Civil and Moral 〈◊〉 those who are truly and godly wise aâ— discern the vanity of their Assertions they term Politicians and say their Wisedome is but carnal and savouring of mans Brain And in like manner if a preacher speak with care and meditation ordering his matter distinctly and inforcing it with strong proofs and warrants they censure it as a form of preaching not becomming the simplicity of the Gospel and refer it to the reprehension of St. Paul speaking of the enticing words of mans wisdome You may read there a great deal more to the same purpose if you have a mind to see your own picture But nothing methinks is more memorable then the blind rage and fury which the discovery of a most impious cheat excited in some of your predecessors hearts There was a young Preacher pretended to a power of Casting out Devils which he began to assume in the year 1586. and more openly professed 1597. This made a great noise of glory lights lamps and shining beams which now appeared in the work a Discovery of the fraudulent practices of John Darrel c. Aâ— 1599. p. 19. It was given out to be a marvelâ—us work a mighty work of the Lord Jesas which all that loved him in sincerity must be careful to publish a matter of as great consequence and as profitable to all that sincerely professed the Gospel as ever any was since the restoring it amongst us b Ib. p. 16. And though first her Majesties Judges and then her commissioners in causes Ecclesiastical found by the free confession of the party said to be dispossessed that it was a meer cheat and a wicked combination to abuse the
And once more in his Preface and in how many other places I cannot tell For to read the whole Book is no less toil than to travail through long Desarts a foot without any company which makes me loth to go thorough it again It is to seek fruit in the Garden of Tantalus to look for one leaf that will give a man either profit or pleasure N. C. This Pride doth not become you C. I can see nothing of that in this censure But if there were you of all other people should wink at it who by his own confession are the proudest men in the Nation N. C. O abominable He never was so mad yet as to grant you that C. What think you of those words If the Non conformist at this day be thought too high and too proud he only groweth like Camomile because he is trod and trampled upon for of Camomile it is said the more it is trodden on the more it grows N. C. I remember them p. 281. But know not what you will make of them C. No It is a plain demonstration according to his reasoning that they are grown intolerably high and proud because they are as he would have you believe intolerably afflicted and distressed p. 249. A most excellent improvement of Affliction and arguing much of the Power of godliness N. C. Come Sir jeer no more at godliness for you have done it too much already Your Book is an exact method and platform to extirpate practical holiness u Preface pag. 12. What makes you giggle in so serious a business C. I cannot but laugh a little at the laborious folly of this mans spight This is a mere device to draw the peoples minds from attending to what I say and to stir up their passion against me as an Enemy and hater of godliness N C. No He doth not think you to be such an Enemy to Religion as your Book would seem to import x Ib. pag. 15. but rather hopes you are a good man y Ib. p. 41. and Book pag. 3. C. That 's the thing I was going to say He overthrows all his accusation in two words by granting me to be Religious and jâ—dicious too p. 105. For how is it possible that a Godly man should contrive a way most effectual to root up godliness and N. C. Stay C You will revoke this favourable opinion of me now that you see whither it will carry you N. C. He saith he hath a great desire to constrain himself to think that you may possibly be wise in Solomon's sense that is fear the Lord p. 41. C. He was I observed at the last very fearful lest he should have judged too well of me and therefore as you say doth but constrain himself nay hath only a great desire to constrain himself but it seems would not do it and that but to think that it is possible I may be a good man With which I am very well contented and if you please I will give him all his good hopes of me back again having no need at all of them It is sufficient for me that he acknowledges he is far from thinking it was my design to overthrow piety though he is sure it is the end of my Book z Preface pag. 12. For mark I beseech you the absurdity of this How is it possible for a man by mere chance having no such design in his head to form so many Aphorisms Maxims and Stratagems all tending to one and the same end viz. the subverting of godliness and introducing impiety and that so exactly methodically and pertinently a Ib. pag. 15. as nothing can be more fitted for this purpose Make out this to me if you can for I protest to you I am utterly to seek how this should come to pass There must be a design of the Author in it or else he could never have done it with as much skill as Campanella shewed when he went to work for the extirpating Protestantism and setling Popery throughout England b Ib. Nay no Engineer he tells you could have given more proper counsel how to slight any fort or strong hold and how to level it with the ground than I have given how true Religion may be plucked up root and branch N. C. These things I confess do not hang well together C. Malice we see wants wit And after all his labour he hath but brought forth the Apothecaries Beast which Julian the Pelagian upbraided St. Austin withal A creature of wonderful strange properties as he made his Patient believe and promised he should see the next day which before morning came had eaten up her self For if I went so judiciously and accurately to work to overthrow all godliness it must be my design to overthrow it but he is far from thinking that and therefore there are no such exact Aphorisms and Stratagems but his better thoughts have destroyed those vain imaginations unless you can believe that Books may be made by shuffling so many Letters together or Batteries and Engines raised with throwing so many skuttles full of dirt and so many bundles of sticks together on a heap N. C. But the God of this world I remember he says so for the present blinded your eyes p. 15. C. What That I should contrive all this and never know it The good man hath plung'd himself so deep in a contradiction that he is fain to fly to the Devil to help him out But I pray who gave him Authority to stretch the Devils power so far that it may be thought to do the same upon a Believer which the Apostle saith he did upon Infidels And what is there that can blind any mans eyes but Covetousness Lust Ambition Anger Hatred or some such evil affection or passion Which if the Faith of Christ have not purged out of my heart I have no desire to constrain my self to think that it is possible I am a good Christian The very bottom of the business is this It is not godliness but themselves for which he is so much concerned and keeps all this stir For the Question is not whether we shall all heartily and earnestly study to be Godly that is to love and obey our Creator above all things according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ but whether you be the only godly or so much beyond all others as you imagine and whether that be the Power of godliness which is vulgarly called by that name This I denied and this made him so angry Notwithstanding which I still believe that many among us whom some of you make little account of are more thoroughly and substantially good than many among you upon whom you liberally bestow that name who value themselves more upon the score of keeping Days repeating Sermons talking of Religion and Experiences than for Justice Charity speaking Truth Peaceableness Meekness Obedience and such like virtues to which I find them very great strangers Now in stead of acknowledging
who would certainly pay them their wages because they were his Servants By this you see what men will do to serve their own cause and how easie a matter it is presently to stuff up a Book and to croud into it a number of good words and yet not write good sense Rather than fail there is a way to strain the holy Scriptures and set them upon the rack that they may reach their purpose as he doth those words of the Apostle supposing gain is Godliness Å¿ 1 Tim. 6.5 pag. 36. to reprove those who Act only out of a light of the recompence of reward As if the Apostle spoke there of gaining Heaven and these were the men from whom we must withdraw our selves N. C. No more good Sir these are the perverse disputings I doubt of men of corrupt minds which the Apostle there speaks of C. Very near of kin to them But if I should proceed to show you how he hath perverted the sense of a great number of other Scriptures which he hath meddled withal that alone would hold us half as long as we have been already They are not words I cast out at random but I speak deliberately and as I think Nor have I time to reckon up all the rest of the places in my Book where he hath left out words or abused the sense I will name only a few more when I mention Prayer communion with God and Meditation as instances of such duties as may be performed between God and our selves and not such as are expressed in life and manners p. 40. He tells you that I take these to be the things which are so airy and refined that no body can feel them no not with his most serious thoughts t P. 56. of his Book And because I affirmed that commonly well meaning people fancy themselves deserted by God when they are not which is sober and good sense and the sum of what I said he is in a rage and fancies the Devil to be entred into me nay no less than seven Devils and cryes out the Lord rebuke you u Ib. p. 72 For was our Saviour saith he a melancholy and fanciful person c. what led him to that wild discourse I know not unless it were his love to contradict and his great wrath and passion against me Which evil Spirits to speak in his own language I hope have but a short time they rage and tear and foam and as his words are sputter so much For he tells you I carp at God and cast smiles of scorn and derision upon the words of the Holy Ghost and intimates I am approaching towards the Blasphemy against it and had almost said I am in the same condition with Simon Magus x All this stuff you may find p. 76 77. And what is all this Holy bluster about Nothing but this what I spoke of many persons now he would have you think was meant of all that ever were even of our Saviour himself and my exposing their fond talk of shinings in and Sealings to that shame which it deserves he makes account is an abuse of the language of the Holy Ghost And yet they themselves cannot but smile at the Pope when he pretends to the Holy Ghost and at his Priests who tell us of Miracles and apparitions of Christ and the Anabaptists in the beginning of the Reformation who talk of Illuminations and extasies and the wild people of the late times when they brag'd of their anointings and teachings and that they were the people of the Lord All which are Scripture phrases but by them most ridiculously used and applyed to themselves as you cannot but acknowledge what is the matter then that you are so angry with me for a smile or two would you only have the Monopoly of these phrases will you have no body to trade in them as VV. B. speaks but only your selves And must we think you are full of the Spirit when you are only full of Scripture words Shinings and Sealings and such like Is it not possible to charge you with folly but we must be thought to wound the blessed Creator too and to be offended at the Holy Ghost y Pag. 76. Away with these proud conceits Do not imagine God and your selves to be so united nor call all your own fancies by the name of Divine Mysteries N. C. Take heed how you speak against Gospel-Mysteries C. They are your Mysteries not the Gospel's which you make such a stir about and call him profane who hath not the same reverence for them which you have your selves And thus the Egyptians I remember when they worshipt Apes Storks and Dogs said those are very great Mysteries be not too bold in talking against them As if said Lucian there were any need of a Mystery or it were such a secret piece of wisdom by which we know Gods to be Gods and Dogs to be Dogs z Dialogue callâ—â— Council of the Godâ— N. C. I confess the Gospel-Mysteries are plain now being revealed by the Spirit in the Apostles as we have already discoursed C. It is very true Hold to those and we shall have no difference about such matters But let this man rave as long as he pleases and lift up his Nose to the Skies if he can he shall never perswade me that you are more extraordinarily inlightned and understand more of them than other men unless I hear you talk more wisely Nor shall I think that I offend when I say many of you take their sudden fancies for gleames of glory and irradiations of the Holy Ghost Let him babble also till his tongue be weary about experiences I shall only believe that he was in love with wrangling and hearing himself talk perpetually For I stated that Doctrine plainly enough but he takes no notice of it and would have those who will read his Book and never look into mine believe upon his word that I am an Enemy to Christian experience a Pag. 158. and perswade them to disbelieve it b Pag. 160. and in short am an Anti-experimentist N. C. You have made me out of love with hard words C. It 's his own p. 158. a compound of Greek and Latin and therefore worse than Heterodoximony N. C. What a word is that C. O it makes a dreadful noise and is very effectual to perswade the People that they hear a Pope not squeak but roar in our Belly So he would have you think that some Preachers make the Pâ—lpits Eccho to Rome ever and anon and by their Heterodoximony have inflamed the Peoples fears c Râ—bailding of London encouraged p. 184. But to let that pass he might as well have said I jeered at keeping the Lords-day commonly called the Sabbath as at laying up and communicating experiences for they are both put together in my Book p. 167. This one would think he was sensible of for mentioning this passage out of my Book afterward